Power users, you'll get your hardware. But prepare to find alternative software.

Just one month ago, the Chromebook Pixel was little more than a poorly sourced rumor. (And personally, while I didn't quite dismiss it out of hand I came pretty close.) Google was releasing a high-end Chromebook with a touchscreen? And that touchscreen would boast a better pixel density than either of the Retina MacBook Pros? The rumor definitely didn’t fit in with the latest (and by all accounts, most successful) wave of Chromebooks, which have turned heads not least because they're cheaper than any Chromebooks have been so far.

And yet, here we are: the Chromebook Pixel is real, it’s on my desk, and it starts at $1,299. For the kind of hardware we’re talking about—state-of-the-art Intel processors, a high-density touchscreen, and build quality to rival the best from both the Windows and Apple ecosystems—that price tag isn’t unreasonable. However, the Pixel is still running Chrome OS. Whether your Chromebook costs $199 or $1,299, that operating system still has all of the same features: it relies on constant Internet connectivity, it seeks to replace traditional desktop apps with Web apps, and it’s mostly just a Web browser running on top of a lightweight Linux distribution.

The question is, does this combination make sense? Are the professionals and power users who are willing to spend that kind of money on a computer the same kind of people who can live within Chrome OS’ limitations?

Body and build quality

Enlarge/ The Chromebook Pixel underneath a 13-inch MacBook Air. Overall, the Pixel is just a little on the plain and boxy side, but that’s actually a bit of a statement in a sea of logo-stamped PCs.

Andrew Cunningham

Specs at a glance: Google Chromebook Pixel

Screen

2560×1700 at 12.85" (239 ppi)

OS

Chrome OS

CPU

1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i5

RAM

4GB 1600MHz DDR3

GPU

Intel HD 4000 Graphics (integrated)

HDD

32 or 64GB solid-state drive

Networking

Dual-band 802.11n, Bluetooth 3.0, USB Ethernet dongle, optional LTE

Ports

2x USB 2.0, mini DisplayPort, card reader, headphones

Size

11.72 × 8.84 × 0.64" (297.7 x 224.6 x 16.2 mm)

Weight

3.35 lbs (1.52 kg)

Battery

59Wh

Warranty

1 year

Starting price

$1,299.99

Price as reviewed

$1,449.99

Other perks

Webcam, 1TB of Google Drive storage for three years, 12 free GoGo Inflight Internet sessions, 100MB of Verizon Wireless data per month for two years (LTE model only)

The body of the Pixel is one solid gray anodized aluminum rectangle. It lacks the curves or tapering that define many Ultrabooks, and it’s a consistent 0.64” thick throughout. This is about a tenth of an inch thinner than Apple’s 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro and, at 3.35 pounds, the Pixel is also just a bit lighter than that laptop (which weighs 3.57 pounds all told). This means the Pixel is neither Ultrabook-thin nor Ultrabook-light, but it’s still pretty easy to sling in a bag and carry around, even if you’re used to something a bit lighter.

The all-aluminum construction is very solid, and the palm rest and keyboard don’t bend or flex even a little under pressure. The laptop is all clean, straight lines with just a couple of exceptions: the indentation in the front that’s used to lift the lid (an action that doesn’t budge the laptop’s base), and the rounded hinge (which protrudes from the back of the laptop). There’s also the standard array of ports: two USB 2.0 ports, a mini-DisplayPort, and a headphone jack on the laptop’s left side, and an SD card slot and (optional) SIM card slot on the right.

Google even went so far as to hide normal computer-y things from view—the speakers are hidden underneath the keyboard rather than behind cutouts, there are no visible screws, and the system’s air vent (located at the back of the laptop near the hinge) is also essentially invisible. The device’s two Chrome labels, one on the hinge and one above the keyboard, are understated and don’t use the colorful Chrome logo as seen on other Chromebooks.

The device’s sole visual flair consists of three horizontal strips near the top of the lid—two of these, on the left and right sides of the lid, are cutouts for the Pixel’s wireless antennas. The strip in the middle is a lightbar that can flash in different colors. When the machine is powered on or put to sleep, the strip briefly flashes blue, red, yellow, and green; when the computer is in use the light is a solid (but gently pulsating) blue. It’s a unique take on the traditional power LED, and it’s a touch that further emphasizes the attention given to the Pixel’s design.

Enlarge/ Even the Pixel's ports eschew unnecessary labels. On the left side, you've got a power jack, mini-DisplayPort connector, two USB 2.0 ports, and a headphone jack.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ There's an SD card reader and SIM card slot on the right side of the laptop.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The front of the laptop is broken only by the indentation for lifting the lid.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The underside of the laptop is even plainer—only some rubber feet and regulatory logos here.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The laptop's slightly protruding hinge also doubles as a wireless antenna and a heatsink.

Enlarge/ The Pixel's lightbar. To really see it in action, tap out the Konami Code on the keyboard.

We found that the Pixel actually runs a bit warm under moderate use—running Pandora in one tab while typing within Google Drive in another was enough to make the laptop’s fan kick on. The back-left corner of the laptop (where we suspect the CPU is) gets pretty toasty, especially if the computer is resting on a cushioned surface rather than a flat one.

The speakers under the keyboard get pretty loud without sacrificing clarity, though as expected in a laptop there’s not much bass to speak of. Google has also hidden a second microphone under the keyboard to help cancel noise from the keyboard during video chats, though Google told us the software to help with this wasn’t quite ready yet and would ship with a future update. The webcam itself is competent but unremarkable, perfectly usable for Google Hangouts (but not Skype or other services without an extension in the Chrome Web Store).

The screen

Enlarge/ We've never been able to say this about a Chromebook before, but this screen has excellent color and viewing angles.

Andrew Cunningham

The build quality is good, but Chromebook Pixel’s screen is the star of the show, its raison d’etre. Every Chromebook we’ve reviewed up until now has used a screen commensurate with the devices’ prices. Low-cost, low-quality panels with poor color and viewing angles have been the order of the day.

The Pixel is different from these panels in four important ways: the first is quality, and both the color and viewing angles on its touchscreen are excellent. They're fully up to the level of Apple’s Retina MacBook Pros or the better Windows 8 Ultrabooks we’ve seen in recent months (we’ll cherry-pick Dell’s XPS 12 and Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga 13 as good examples). The display also gets quite bright, though the brighter settings will sap the machine’s battery life fairly quickly (more on that later on).

The second difference is touch—the Pixel’s display is also a ten-point capacitive touchscreen not dissimilar from those currently shipping in high-end Windows 8 laptops. Like those displays, both the screen and its bezel are coated by a sheet of glass that looks nice but is extremely glossy and reflective.

Despite sporting a touchscreen, Chrome OS doesn’t yet do much to take advantage of it. No UI elements from the operating system have been tweaked to be more finger-friendly, and there definitely aren’t any touch gestures meant to simplify navigation (as exist in Windows 8 and many other smartphone and tablet operating systems). Even within the Chrome browser itself, the only thing you can really do with touch is scroll. Pinch-to-zoom is supported by some Web apps (Google Maps is probably the most prominent), but not universally. We suspect that Chrome OS’ list of touch features will grow over time, especially if the Pixel inspires other Chromebooks to pick up touch support (and it will probably be a boon to games like Angry Birds on the platform). But at the moment a touchscreen is in no way integral to the experience.

The third difference is the one that gives the Pixel its name: its screen uses a 12.85-inch 2560×1700 panel. At 239 PPI, this is even a bit denser than the 227 PPI of the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. The comparison to Apple’s laptops is especially apt because the two operating systems take a similar approach to increasing screen density. They both choose to quadruple the resolution of a common display resolution and scale all of the text and graphics to 200 percent their normal display size, as opposed to the incremental (and sometimes messy) 140 percent and 180 percent scaling that Windows favors.

Because they take the same approach, the Chromebook Pixel’s display shares all of the same virtues and shortcomings as the displays in the Retina MacBook Pros (and, for that matter, the Retina iPads and high-density Android tablets like the Nexus 10). Text, graphics, and applications that have been optimized for 200 percent scaling look crisp and clear, while images and apps that haven’t been optimized look just a little fuzzy.

A screenshot showing off the differences between text, optimized images, and non-optimized images. Note the blurriness of the icons for Twitter and the Ars Wiki, and compare to the sharpness of the text and the Google icons.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ Here's a photograph of a non-optimized image, a chart from one of our earlier Chromebook reviews. The image isn't out of focus—look closely and you can clearly see individual pixels—but fine details in low-resolution images will seem a bit soft and blurred.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The Ars header image, on the other hand, has been optimized for high-density displays, so it looks nice and sharp.

Andrew Cunningham

In Chrome OS, Google has done most of the heavy lifting to get the built-in applications (and its own Web apps) looking good on the high-density display. Step outside of Google’s bubble and you’ll find that the majority of sites and apps still haven’t been optimized for these dense displays. None of this is Google’s fault, and text in particular does look excellent on the screen, but the benefits aren’t universal.

Finally, the fourth major difference: the aspect ratio. Most computers (and many phones and tablets) use a 16:9 aspect ratio, at least partly because this aspect ratio is widely used in TV shows and movies (and televisions themselves). Among those who use their computers primarily for computing, though, the loss of aspect ratios like 16:10 and 4:3—the sacrifice of vertical pixels in favor of horizontal pixels in a world where the vast majority of scrolling happens up-and-down and not side-to-side—has been a bit less than welcome. Google has used a 3:2 pixel ratio in this Chromebook, and this could also be rendered as 15:10, or just a little less wide than a 16:10 display given the same number of vertical pixels. Google's stated goal with this nonstandard aspect ratio is to reduce the amount of vertical scrolling you have to do. It's definitely a nice step up from the 1366×768 panels you usually see in low-end Chromebooks.

Google also mentioned to us that 3:2 is the same aspect ratio used by many DSLRs, which in their opinion should make the Pixel better for editing photos. There are two things wrong with this supposition: first, by virtue of being a Chromebook, most of the software that professional (and even amateur) photographers use to organize and edit their images isn’t going to be available on the Pixel. Second, you still have to make room for the user interface of said imaging program. You often won’t be manipulating the images in full-screen mode anyway.

All things considered, the Pixel’s screen is excellent. But it will be held back somewhat until high-density screens (and sites and apps designed to take advantage of them) become the rule rather than the exception.

Keyboard and trackpad

Continuing in the same vein as the rest of the hardware, the keyboard and trackpad in the Pixel feel like they belong in a $1,300 laptop. Chromebooks do make some unconventional layout decisions—no “Windows” or “Command” key (depending on what ecosystem you’re coming from); no dedicated caps lock key (though the Search key can be configured to act as a caps lock key in the browser’s settings); and no dedicated Delete key (holding down Alt and pressing Backspace will do the trick). These are probably the most noticeable changes, but otherwise it’s a pretty standard chiclet keyboard right down to the half-height arrow keys.

The plastic keys are all perfectly square and flat, and they're only very lightly textured. Key travel on the main keys is satisfying—comparable to the 13-inch MacBook Air’s keyboard, but perhaps a little deeper—and they make a slightly more audible clacking sound as you type. (I find this more satisfying than the Air’s, though I realize this will come down to personal taste). The row of function keys, situated at the top of the keyboard, has slightly more resistance to it than the main keys, and individual keys are also a bit wider than the standard keys. These things aren’t really good or bad—they're just different.

Enlarge/ The Pixel's keyboard backlight does a good job adjusting its brightness based not just on the ambient light, but also on what you're doing.

Andrew Cunningham

The keyboard’s backlight is nice and even and does a pretty good job of getting brighter and dimmer based on the ambient light wherever you’re working. It also adapts to what you’re doing—for instance, it will be brighter when you’re typing than it is when you’re watching a video, even if the ambient light is the same.

Moving on to the trackpad: the Pixel uses a black clickable glass trackpad with a matte texture that Google says has been “analyzed and honed using a laser microscope.” Whatever they’re doing, it feels nice.

It’s clear from using it for a few days that the Pixel’s trackpad benefits from the tight integration between the hardware and software sides of Google’s house. Past Chromebooks have typically shipped with “good enough” trackpads that occasionally mis-interpret gestures, have issues with palm rejection, or are otherwise tweaky. But in our week or so with the Pixel, we had no major issues with either the sensitivity or the general performance of the Pixel’s trackpad.

The problem here (if “problem” is even the right word) is the same one we had with the touchscreen—the Pixel has a lovely and accurate trackpad, and the software doesn’t do a whole lot to take advantage of it. The fact that clicking and dragging, pinching to zoom, and two-finger scrolling all work predictably and without issue is a good start. But with a trackpad as good as this one, it feels like the operating system needs some more complex multitouch gestures. Google is positioning the Pixel as a Chromebook for professionals—anything it can do in the software to aid multitasking is going to appeal to that audience in particular.

Andrew Cunningham
Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites

If this has USB3 and let me install my own OS, this would likely be a fantastic machine to take with me for photography on the go along with basic editing and copy to external USB3 drive, and save my Lenovo w520 for heavy lifting editing afterwards. Or some coding, since the 3:2 would have so much more vertical room. Long live vertical pixels!

I actually don't understand the point of Chrome OS. If it really is meant to be just a cloud-based device, what advantage does it have over Android? Why not just make an "Android laptop"? I realize that Android would need a few tweaks to make it work in a laptop configuration, but then you would have a host of native apps as well as the cloud based ones.

The iPad is another consumer device that avoided the 16:9 ratio to save vertical space when viewing a web page. It also allows the device to have a very nice vertical ratio for viewing and editing A4/US letter size documents.

Going back to the Pixel. I am pretty sure the hardware can run a full Linux distribution, but did Google lock this hardware? Can you try to boot from a live USB and install ubuntu for instance?

I think such a hardware would be a pleasure to use with a unified version of Ubuntu that can switch from a touch-centric UI to a traditional desktop.

Given that an iPad has approaching the same resolution but higher density, meaning it's possible for an ARM processor to drive a high resolution device, why isn't this thing an ARM based smartbook?

Then the OS and the internals would be congruent and the price would likely be below $1k since you would need less battery to drive the CPU/GPU combo and you would be paying less for the CPU/GPU as well.

I actually don't understand the point of Chrome OS. If it really is meant to be just a cloud-based device, what advantage does it have over Android? Why not just make an "Android laptop"? I realize that Android would need a few tweaks to make it work in a laptop configuration, but then you would have a host of native apps as well as the cloud based ones.

I'm as baffled as you - have been for a good while. A "desktop" version of Android seems a lot more interesting than ChromeOS, and with greater potential. For about a year I've been waiting for Google to announce that ChromeOS will be discontinued and efforts instead used to bring Android to laptops and PCs, but they seem to carry on with ChromeOS. There is an unofficial Android port to that end (http://www.android-x86.org/) which, though not fully laptop ready, was a better laptop experience for me than the latest vanilla ChromeOS build.

Could it be that this is a demonstration model of what ChromeOS can bring to the table? Say, for example, that Google approached Adobe about creating photo editing software for ChromeOS, and Adobe said "Not a chance on current hardware" could this convince them otherwise?

I'm just thinking that the review is spot on: ChromeOS doesn't need anything like this hardware... but hardware like this, successfully being manipulated by ChromeOS might get someone to say "Hey now, what could I do..."

"Android laptops" would need touchscreens, which would send the price point...well, to about this level.

Android already can support a mouse and keyboard. If you have a Bluetooth-enabled mouse/keyboard lying around, go ahead an pair it with an Android phone or tablet. Voila! A pointer magically appears on the screen and you can click and point to your heart's content.

I love the hardware, although I would like to see higher ssd options, 128 or 256 would be nice. The OS does nothing to entice me though. I draw/paint/sketch etc digitally on the go and would love to have a way to touch up my files, but I really don't want to be limited in software choices.

To be honest though, what I really want is a tablet laptop (rotating screen) that has a great screen like this and has the dpi to paint digitally on it from the get go. Alas, I am a poor man and that product would cost me more than the Pixel, I'm sure. Still though... I like where they're headed, just improve the OS and storage options!

"Google also mentioned to us that 3:2 is the same aspect ratio used by many DSLRs, which in their opinion should make the Pixel better for editing photos. There are two things wrong with this supposition: first, by virtue of being a Chromebook, most of the software that professional (and even amateur) photographers use to organize and edit their images isn’t going to be available on the Pixel. Second, you still have to make room for the user interface of said imaging program. You often won’t be manipulating the images in full-screen mode anyway"

Exactly, I have a widescreen monitor, and with Lightroom and the UI chrome makes the actual photo viewing area about 3:2 - almost like Adobe designed it that way.

One thing that the Chromebook Pixel really brings home is how crap normal laptops have become. Why do PC manufacturers even bother any more? No wonder the PC business isn't doing well, when they stick to just churning out more crappy stuff and think that "full HD" (aka 1080p) is somehow the epitome of greatness.

It is really amazing how the pixel chromebook is getting a pass from the media. Had MS released such a device for such a price, they would be laughed out of the park. Compare this to the surface pro review. Even though both Pixel and Surface pro have scaling issues and non touch optimised desktop, it warrants full two pages of criticism for Sufrace pro while Pixel gets only one paragraph.

I asked this in the comments of the last Pixel article, and nobody answered. The Samsung Chromebook is currently (and apparently has been since it came out) the number one selling laptop on Amazon. Who is buying all these Chromebooks, and why?

I wonder what it would be like to get one of these things and slap a real operating system on it. Maybe something that could support Steam for Linux?

While I appreciate the sentiment of your post, you're going to have a hell of a time playing anything substantial with a tiny hard drive and poor graphics support. Unless you want to try to stream game content from your 1TB cloud storage.....uhhh....

I actually don't understand the point of Chrome OS. If it really is meant to be just a cloud-based device, what advantage does it have over Android? Why not just make an "Android laptop"? I realize that Android would need a few tweaks to make it work in a laptop configuration, but then you would have a host of native apps as well as the cloud based ones.

In addition to timely updates directly from Google, Chromebooks are interchangeable. You lose it or break it, you just get another one and log in. All your stuff is there (except for stuff cached locally on the encrypted storage, but again that should be just a cache). That has a more obvious appeal for schools and businesses, but is also good for people that don't do backups (i.e. most people).

You can get native code through NaCl, although that isn't quite native apps.

To replace an Android device, you could go to the store(s) and reinstall most/all of your apps, but the data for those apps might be lost entirely. With Chrome OS, the premise is that your stuff is in the cloud, so you don't have to worry about it (in that way -- if the cloud goes down, you're stuck working with the local cache, and apps have varying support for that at the moment).

Is there any point for a laptop to have a touch screen? If the laptop could be folded into a tablet, then I could see that being useful, but with your hands on the keyboard, and your thumbs right next to the touch pad, are you going to want to reach up and poke at the screen? It just doesn't seem like it would be very useful at all.

Hey guys, can you test Crouton and check how it well runs? There's no need to replace ChromeOS, you can run Ubuntu with the ChromeOS kernel, and if you really dislike it, you can install Linux pretty easily. Of course, this isn't for regular users, but I would like to know how it works before buying it!

pancakesandbeyond wrote:

Is there any point for a laptop to have a touch screen? If the laptop could be folded into a tablet, then I could see that being useful, but with your hands on the keyboard, and your thumbs right next to the touch pad, are you going to want to reach up and poke at the screen? It just doesn't seem like it would be very useful at all.

According to satisfaction surveys, owners of laptops with touchscreens are significantly more satisfied with it than owners of touchless laptops, so essentially your intuitive idea is not supported by the evidence.

I actually don't understand the point of Chrome OS. If it really is meant to be just a cloud-based device, what advantage does it have over Android? Why not just make an "Android laptop"? I realize that Android would need a few tweaks to make it work in a laptop configuration, but then you would have a host of native apps as well as the cloud based ones.

Why would you want to run smartphone apps on a laptop? If people want native apps on an inexpensive (expensive) laptop, they're going to buy something called "Windows" ("Mac OS X") that has 90% (10%) marketshare and runs an overwhelming catalog of native apps.

In terms of Android vs Chrome, they're both based on the Linux kernel. One runs Java apps using a pretty traditional API. The other runs Java/Actionscript using HTML5 and Flash as the API.